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ttodd86's review against another edition
3.0
This book is so difficult for me to review.
On one hand, this is a topic that a lot of the developed world needs to know more about. The challenges posed by the Dadaab camps are pretty much overwhelming. This isn't a case where you can just send money or send more food or bring in more aid workers and everything gets better. In every way, this is a tragedy demanding global attention.
I just feel like there was a missed opportunity here to do something immensely powerful.
This book is just not very well organized. There are nine stories here, but keeping track of them is extremely difficult. Generally, things move in a chronological order, but the stories jump around a lot. The result is it takes so much away from the emotional impact.
Finally -- and this is not the first time I have made this comment about a book -- where in the world are the pictures. Everyone has a camera with them all the time (even many of the refugees who have nothing have cell phones) why, oh why do I have to go online to find pictures of these camps?
On one hand, this is a topic that a lot of the developed world needs to know more about. The challenges posed by the Dadaab camps are pretty much overwhelming. This isn't a case where you can just send money or send more food or bring in more aid workers and everything gets better. In every way, this is a tragedy demanding global attention.
I just feel like there was a missed opportunity here to do something immensely powerful.
This book is just not very well organized. There are nine stories here, but keeping track of them is extremely difficult. Generally, things move in a chronological order, but the stories jump around a lot. The result is it takes so much away from the emotional impact.
Finally -- and this is not the first time I have made this comment about a book -- where in the world are the pictures. Everyone has a camera with them all the time (even many of the refugees who have nothing have cell phones) why, oh why do I have to go online to find pictures of these camps?
joeyanne's review against another edition
4.0
This book was an education. I found the juxtaposition of my Canadian life - reading in my comfortable clean bed each night with full belly and work in the morning - and the difficulties faced in the book by real people jarring. I am humbled and sad And while I am grateful for the good things I enjoy, I feel tremendous anxiety for the waste I witness and participate in every day.
I hope this book will impact me in tangible ways. I yearn for a more equitable world.
Besides being weighty and sometimes even depressing, this book was well-written and interesting. I’d recommend it for sure!
I hope this book will impact me in tangible ways. I yearn for a more equitable world.
Besides being weighty and sometimes even depressing, this book was well-written and interesting. I’d recommend it for sure!
anovelobsession's review against another edition
5.0
I knew next to nothing about Dadaab, the largest refugee camp in the world, prior to reading this book. It is unbelievable the chaos and turmoil these refugees have to go through in their life to escape war and brutal regimes. The author followed nine refugees over the course of a couple of years and documented how they came to be a refugee at that camp and the struggle to even survive there. The overwhelming scale of the refugee crisis was clearly evident as the author gave a glimpse into the enormous efforts to house and feed the refugees as well as the amount of corruption and politics that hinder the best intentions to provide refugees what they need until they can be repatriated. Some of the refugees were born in the camp and now are adults. It is the only life they have ever known. It prompted me to do a lot more research on Dadaab and other refugee camps and left me wishing that there was something I could do to help.
lsparrow's review against another edition
4.0
Intense but someohow able to bring in very complex social political information and analysis with very individual human sotries.
toffeeredraider's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
marysasala's review against another edition
3.0
More a 3.5, I would recommend this to certain people.
It is not a happy or hopeful story. This is a sad story that has no real answers of how to end the tragedies around us.
I wish this book had gone into more depth about the history and geography of the region. Clearly culture, religion and geography have had such an impact on the tragedy but even after this books I’m seeking more understanding of how we got here.
It is not a happy or hopeful story. This is a sad story that has no real answers of how to end the tragedies around us.
I wish this book had gone into more depth about the history and geography of the region. Clearly culture, religion and geography have had such an impact on the tragedy but even after this books I’m seeking more understanding of how we got here.
tsentas's review against another edition
4.0
Fraught with the kind of challenges you would expect from an attempt by a white British author to truly provide real insight into the day-to-day life, hopes, dreams, and fears of Somali refugees in Kenya. As others have noted, it's really a book with two tracks: one describing the complex history of the region with a surface level critique of the UN and humanitarian system, the second focused on recounting the stories, experiences, and perspectives of some of the refugees living in the camps at Dadaab. There's promise in the first track's attempt at reportage, though a marked shift towards more overly descriptive prose mars the second. I'd rate this as 3.5 stars overall, rounded up.
All in all though this is a severely underreported story that deserves greater attention. There are now more people forcibly displaced from their homes than at any point in history - nearly 80 million in 2019, and of those 26 million are refugees and half of them are under the age of 18. The international community has consistently failed to address the causes of displacement - now tied closely to violence and persecution, and failed to provide refugees with meaningful paths to resettlement and integration - leaving millions in refugee camps living in a state of semi-permanent limbo facing a set of impossible choices. Understanding how and why this came to be, and what we can do to change it must be one of the urgent moral projects of our time.
All in all though this is a severely underreported story that deserves greater attention. There are now more people forcibly displaced from their homes than at any point in history - nearly 80 million in 2019, and of those 26 million are refugees and half of them are under the age of 18. The international community has consistently failed to address the causes of displacement - now tied closely to violence and persecution, and failed to provide refugees with meaningful paths to resettlement and integration - leaving millions in refugee camps living in a state of semi-permanent limbo facing a set of impossible choices. Understanding how and why this came to be, and what we can do to change it must be one of the urgent moral projects of our time.
sujuv's review against another edition
4.0
A book about Somali refugees and the Kenyan refugee camp they have no choice but to call home. Half a million people live there in poverty, not allowed to work in Kenya because of their refugee status (though there is plenty of commerce in the camp conducted by refugees and by Kenyans), trying to have some sort of a life. It's heartbreaking and eye-opening
millierose2010's review against another edition
5.0
Excellent portrayal of the personal experiences of people within refugee camps in Kenya.